Sea Grant to Host Best Management Practices Workshop for Professionals and Contractors Working Along the Lake Erie Shoreline
Pennsylvania Sea Grant will facilitate a two-day Best Management Practices workshop for landscapers, realtors, environmental engineers, surveyors, municipal officials, and other professionals whose work touches our region’s environmentally fragile shorelines.
“People pay dearly for waterfront property, so they want to protect their investment by hiring professionals who understand its special concerns,” Marti Martz, Sea Grant coastal outreach specialist, says of the workshop’s purpose. “Anyone working beside Lake Erie or a tributary stream can have considerable impact on that area. Ignorance of Best Management Practices for controlling the natural processes of erosion, sedimentation and recession can result in increased bluff and stream bank soil erosion and sediment deposition. This not only compromises the integrity of the shoreline, but also adversely affects the quality of the surrounding water.”
The Best Management Practices for Professionals workshop is scheduled for Thursday, November 13 and Friday, November 14. Thursday will be a full day of presentations at the Tom Ridge Environmental Center in Erie; Friday will be used for site visits.
Topics to be covered in the worship include coastal geology, hydrology, and the ecological impact of shoreline erosion; public access issues; the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ permit process; similarities of and differences between the permitting processes in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio; landscape solutions for erosion-prone areas; habitat impacts of riparian projects; and in-stream habitat and bank stabilization devices.
The cost to attend the two-day workshop is $25. The workshop is approved for Penn State Continuing Education credit by the Pennsylvania Board of Realtors and the State Board of Landscape Architects for an additional fee of $35.
For more information or to register for the workshop, contact Martz by phone at 814-217-9015, e-mail her, or visit the Pennsylvania Sea Grant Web site.